Kevin Costner strikes out in a baseball weepie

A perfect game in Yankee Stadium is no big deal these days; two have been pitched in the past 16 months. But a good baseball movie, that's hard. Kevin Costner was in one of those (Bull Durham). In For Love of the Game he tries for two, as an aging Detroit Tigers pitcher in what may be his final game--a last shot at perfection.

Costner still twinkles and steams plausibly, but all else about the film is ludicrous. The nattering violins, orgasmic from the first moment, alert you that director Sam Raimi has either no control of the production or...